Download turkey and europe:a historical perspective

TURKEY AND EUROPE:A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
HALİL İNALCIK
Bilkent University, Ankara
The earliest known Neolithic site of Hac_lar and Çatalhöyük, dating back to 7000BC "stands out as
an incomparable prehistoric centre of culture. It was here that man created one of his first great
works of art" (Prof. Dr. Ekrem Akurgal, Ancient Civilisations, p. 3). Agriculture was then practised,
as revealed by the excavations. Anatolian civilisation seems to have been retarded and remained at
the stage of a village civilisation until 2500BC when the Bronze Age started with the Hatti. The Hatti
gave their name to Asia Minor which was then called the Land of the Hatti. Before the Hittites, an
Indo-European people, began to arrive from 2200BC, the Hatti had reached a high level of urban
civilisation, writing in cuneiform from the beginning of the eighteenth century BC. The Hatti's
cultural influence, particularly in religion and state organisation on the Old Hittite Kingdom (17501450BC), was paramount. The Hatti language was different from all other Near Eastern languages.
In its basic structure it has common characteristics with the Altaic or Turkic language family.
Other known inhabitants of Asia Minor before the Hittites were Luvians, an Indo-European people
living in southwest Anatolia. The Hurrians, whose language showed an Altaic structure, occupied the
southeast around 2000BC. They came under the strong influence of Babylonian culture. The Hurrians
were followed by the Mitanni, an Indo-European people in eastern Anatolia. The newcomers, the
'people of Hatti', to which the Old Testament name Hittite was derived, spoke an Indo-European
language called Nesian (Hittites called themselves Nesi or Na_i).
With the invasion of these Indo-European tribes between 2200BC and 2100BC, a new period began in
Asia Minor. The Hittites founded the first strong state uniting the whole of Asia Minor under their
rule (1450-1200BC), and annexed Aleppo and Babylon. The name Asia comes from the Hittite word
Assuwa. In Syria they clashed with the Egyptian empire of Ramses II in 1299BC, leading to the the
earliest known peace treaty signing at Qadesh, 1299BC. At the excavations at the Hittite city of
Kültepe there came to light the first state archives of mankind.
Scholarship underlines the artistic and cultural influence of the early Asia Minor civilisations on
Aegean and Greek culture (Akurgal, Orient und Okziden, Baden-Baden, 1966). Archaeological
excavations, to which in the 1930’s Atatürk gave impetus, delivered solid evidence that before the
Aegean culture flourished in Ionia, Anatolia had become the cradle of great civilisations. Atatürk
regarded the Hittite state as the prototype of the modern Turkish state in Asia Minor with its
territorial boundaries and its capital in the central plateau.
While the central plateau and mountainous east came under the strong influence of the highly
developed Mesopotamian civilisations in the early periods, later on Western Anatolian cultures, as
uncovered in Troy and the western coastal areas, represented a different cultural tradition coming
from the Aegean. In fact, throughout its history Anatolia became the bridge for the transmission and
fusion of oriental and Western cultures from the Bronze Age to the present time. The Ionian
civilisation in western Anatolia was a product of the coexistence of Greek people with the natives of
Asia Minor (Akurgal, Ancient Civilisations, p. 17).
Scholarship has established that no fewer than seventy languages have been used in Anatolia up to
the present time and that more than twenty different ethnic groups live today in Turkey. In the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Caucasus, the
Crimea, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania, who felt themselves to belong to Turkish culture
came and were settled by the government in various parts of Anatolia. It is suggested that every
third person in Turkey today belongs to one of these refugee groups. The explanation is that under
the Turkish states which succeeded each other in Anatolia and the Balkans in the course of the last
millennium, all of these indigenous and immigrant peoples acquired a common Turkish identity.
Very long coexistence and common historical experience under a unified state structure gave rise to
one Turkish culture and a common culture is the solid foundation of the Turkish nation today.
Ideological attempts to break up this unity are against the historically formed, organic existence of
the Turkish nation of today.
The Ionian civilisation, which gave to the Graeco-Roman civilisation the principle of national
thinking and science, flourished in western Anatolia with Greek colonies on coastal regions and a
highly developed trade during Hellenistic and Roman periods, blending Greek civilisation with the
Orient's wisdom and mysticism, Anatolia then appeared as the world's richest and most advanced
region. The ruins of the magnificent cities from this period witness to this golden age of the
peninsula.
In the following period, Asia Minor became the scene of an inconclusive struggle between the
Caliphate and the Byzantine Empire, and declined until the time when, under the Seljuk sultanate
of Konya, it recovered its past prosperity. With the Seljuks, the Turkish-Islamic period of Asia Minor
began. The great Seljuk empire in the east, encompassing central Asia and Iran, vigorously
continued the struggle against the Byzantines who lost the final confrontation at the battle of
Manzikert in 1071. Then, the whole peninsula to the Aegean was flooded with Turkish tribes.
The first period of the Turkish invasion and settlement under the local Turcoman dynasties ended
with the unification of Asia Minor, except for the western regions. Under the Seljuks of Konya, the
peninsula rose once again to be one of the most prosperous and advanced areas of the world and at
the crossroads of the then flourishing east-west trade (trade privileges, for example, were granted
to Venice in 1220). Anatolian cities of the Seljuks can be compared to those of the Graeco-Roman
period, with the difference of their oriental characteristics. The Seljuks built on trade highways
magnificent caravansaries comparable to Western cathedrals. In the classical period of this refined
civilisation, Konya became the most celebrated centre of oriental mysticism with Mawlana
Jalaleddin Rumi and other great mystic philosophers of the thirteenth century. Under the Seljuks,
Islamic religion and civilisation became prevalent in Asia Minor.
The task of Islamisation was completed under the second period of the Turcoman principalities,
which arose on the frontier areas and conquered Byzantine western Anatolia. The Ottoman state in
its first stage was one of these Turcoman principalities. The frontier military tradition and the
Seljuk cultural heritage made it possible for the Ottomans to create one of the most powerful and
enduring empires of the world, replacing the Byzantine Empire in _stanbul and the Balkans.
Although ethnic and cultural identity in Anatolia has been Turkish for the last millennium, it
represents in fact a synthesis of various cultural and ethnic heritages which have been juxtaposed
and fused in the long history of the peninsula. Archaeological and anthropological research shows
that in daily life, beliefs, language, toponymy, arts and anthropological features of the Turkish
nation today there are numerous elements from the bygone people and their civilisations. Five main
periods in this long evolution can be identified: I. the Hatti and Hittite period, 2500-900BC; II. the
Urartian civilisation in eastern Anatolia and Phrygian, Lydian and Carian civilisations in western
Anatolia, 900-300BC; III. the Minoan and Ionian-Greek civilisations in Western Anatolia and the
Aegean, a Persian interlude (546-334 BC), and Hellenistic civilisation, 900-30BC; IV. the Roman and
Byzantine period, 30BC-AD1071; V. Turkish Asia Minor–a. the Seljuks and Turcoman principalities,
1071-1307, b. the Ottomans, 1307-1923, and c. the Turkish Republic, 1923 onwards.
1. The Ottoman Empire's Place in World History
In this synopsis an attempt will be made to review Turkish-European relations in past political,
economic and cultural perspectives. The dividing line in these relations is, without doubt, the rise
of the modern nation-state of Turkey.
In the period 1250-1500, the Levant, that is the eastern Mediterranean region with its hinterland of
economically integrated countries, was the world's most lively region for the exchange of goods and
ideas between east and west before the great European discoveries. The Ottomans unified under
their rule the entire region conquering first Anatolia and the Balkans from the Euphrates to the
Danube and from the Crimea to the Aegean islands in the period 1300-1453. In 1453 they conquered
Constantinople/_stanbul despite the threat of a Western crusade, thus creating a compact empire
around the imperial capital and the Straits. In the early sixteenth century they annexed to their
Empire the Arab lands of Syria, Egypt, Arabia and the Yemen (1516-1517), thus taking under their
control the trade and pilgrimage routes through the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, which involved
them in a long struggle against the Portuguese. In the east, at various dates they extended their
rule as far as Tabriz (1517, 1534, 1585), Georgia (1549) and the Caspian Sea (1585) in an effort to
establish their full control of the silk route from Tabriz to Bursa and from Tabriz to Aleppo.
Annexing Iraq (1534) and gaining access to the Gulf (1534) they participated, along with the
Portuguese and the Iranian Safavids, in the flourishing trade of the Indian Ocean through Hormuz,
Basra and Baghdad.
In 1453, the full control of the Straits (the Dardanelles, Marmara Sea and the Bosphorus) gave the
Ottomans a strategic position in establishing full control over the trade of the Black Sea and East
European countries (for instance the conquest of the Genoese colonies of the Crimea in 1475, and
the first commercial agreement with Muscovy in 1497).
The first Ottoman grant of trade privileges, or capitulations, to the Genoese in 1352, and
subsequently to Venice and Florence, guaranteed the continuation of the grand commerce of these
maritime republics with the Levant, thus securing the economic prosperity of Renaissance Italy. The
Ottoman sultans extended the same trade privileges to France in 1569, to England in 1580 and to
the Netherlands in 1612. At one time, half of the foreign trade of France was with the Levant, while
England's Levant Company, pioneer of such trade companies, established the basis of that country's
commercial expansion in the world and of its capitalistic development. In those early centuries
when the Ottoman emperors represented a superpower in the East, they granted such privileges
only to those nations judged as friendly. Capitulations became a kind of bilateral, binding treaty
only when Russia elicited such capitulations in 1783. Extended at each renewal and practically
mandatory, the capitulatory privileges with a low rate of three per cent customs dues became a
means for the European economic exploitation of the Middle East and were responsible for the
collapse of its native handicraft industries in the period 1600-1900. In the 1840s, England's exports
to the Middle East jumped to one-third of its whole foreign trade. In brief, it can be said that in the
period 1500-1990, the Ottoman Empire, whose territory comprised Asia Minor, the Balkans and the
Arab lands of the Middle East, played one of the most crucial roles in the economic development of
Europe.1
2. The European state-system and the Ottoman Empire, 1500-1815
Medieval Europe was supposed to make up one unified Republica Christina under the Pope and the
Holy Roman Emperor. This unity began to dissolve with the rise of the national monarchies in the
fifteenth century. Then, the crucial issue in the realignment of the rising powers in Europe was, on
the one hand, how to keep the balance of power among the rival national monarchies and, on the
other hand, how to keep the balance of power between the national monarchies and the Holy
Roman Empire under the Habsburgs. In the sixteenth century the Ottoman Empire, rising as a
superpower in the east, in rivalry with the Habsburgs, played a crucial role in the struggle.
In his struggle against the Emperor Charles V, the French King Francis I (1515-1547) admitted that
the only power capable of checking Charles V's domination of Europe was Süleyman the Magnificent
(1520-1566). Francis's successor Henri II (1547-1559) had to borrow, through the Jewish banker
family of Mendes, large sums of money from the Ottomans to finance his wars against the emperor.
Again, the French prince Henri was able to gain the Polish throne (1573) only with the strong
support of the Ottomans who opposed a Habsburg-backed king in Poland. The Ottomans also
encouraged and promised aid to the Protestants in Germany as well as to the Dutch in rebellion
against the Habsburgs in the Low Countries. Historians today unanimously underline the fact that
Protestants obtained significant concessions from the emperor because of the impending Ottoman
pressure from the east. Later on, when Elizabeth I (1558-1603) of England was under threat from
the Spanish Armada, she tried to stir up Ottoman naval action in the Mediterranean against Spain.
Examples can be multiplied to demonstrate how significant a role the Ottoman state played in
maintaining the balance of power in Europe in the sixteenth century. In general, the Ottoman state
pursued a policy aiming to ensure that none of the European powers became powerful enough to
unify Europe under its domination.
In the end, two superpowers, the Ottoman and Habsburg empires, reached a kind of balance in
east-central Europe and the Mediterranean, and made a truce in 1547 which stabilised the Ottoman
territories in Europe and opened a new period of balance of power in Europe. Following the Catholic
reaction and the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) in Europe, the France of Louis XIV (1643-1715)
challenged the emperor, which emboldened the Ottomans to resume their expansionist policy
against the Habsburgs. The Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683 resulted in a coalition around the
Habsburgs against the Ottoman Empire (the Holy League of 1684). England and the Netherlands,
worried by the French advances in the Rhine valley, were endeavouring to achieve peace between
the Ottomans and the emperor. English and Dutch pressure on the Habsburgs during the peace
negotiations at Karlowitz in 1699 were duly appreciated by the Porte which subsequently granted to
them new commercial privileges. This was the beginning of England's special influence in the
Ottoman Empire which would last until 1878. This is also the date at which the Ottomans finally
recognised European superiority in military technology and decided to imitate. European experts
were invited to modernise Ottoman army.
During the long war of 1683-1699 another very important development took place–the Russian
Empire, joined the Holy League and entered the Black Sea region by capturing Azov (Azak) in 1696.
Now _stanbul itself was under threat. Equally important was that Russia then was admitted into the
European state-system as a result of its joining the Holy League, whereas the Ottoman Empire
remained outside the system until 1841.2
3. Russian imperialism the Ottoman Empire and the West and the so-called Eastern Question
In the eighteenth century, Russia, now officially recognised as part of Europe, pursued a plan of
replacing the Ottoman Empire in _stanbul, the tsar claiming to be the protector of the Christian
populations of the Balkans. Weakened and threatened by Russia and the Habsburgs, the Ottomans,
along with the Western powers, now became more than ever an advocate of the balance of power in
Europe. This Ottoman policy became particularly apparent in the protest against Poland's partition
between Russia, the Habsburgs and Prussia (1772-1795). Once more, the Western powers, France
and England, were joining the Porte in this policy. In the wake of the Russians' spectacular military
successes against the Ottoman armies during the war of 1768-1774, the Russian annexation in 1783
of the northern Black Sea countries, inhabited mostly by Muslim peoples of Turkic origin, alarmed
the whole of Europe. Russia now had an exclusive trade monopoly in the Black Sea and had become
an imminent threat to _stanbul and the Straits. The Porte now sought aid and guarantees from
Western powers for its territorial integrity. This new situation was labelled in European diplomacy
as the Eastern Question, showing Western concern to preserve the Ottoman Empire, considered
necessary for the European balance of power. (Incidentally it is a totally misleading mistake in
Western literature to call the Ottoman Empire the Turkish Empire; identifying the Ottoman state–a
patrimonial, dynastic empire–with the present-day nation-state of Turkey, which came into
existence in 1923, is a mistake often responsible for the unjust anachronistic treatment by European
states of the issues concerning modern Turkey.) This Western policy, however, did not go so far as
to make the Ottoman state a member of the European state-system under the guarantees of
international law. It was mainly religious ideology that was responsible for the Europeans denying
the fact that the Ottoman state had long become part and parcel of the continental state-system.
However, it is to be noted that Protestant countries, particularly England, overriding the Pope's
prohibition of the sale of strategic materials to the 'infidel', used to export to the Ottoman Empire
high quality powder and steel as early as the sixteenth century. It is also to be remembered that the
Ottoman government systematically supported Lutherans and Calvinists throughout Europe. In the
Ottoman Empire, too, while pragmatic-minded bureaucrats put the state's interests above
everything else, the ulema, representing Islamic ideology, endeavoured to impose, most of the time
without success, their influence on state policies.
4. European security systems and the Ottoman state, 1815-1878
One century before the establishment of the League of Nations and the United Nations, Fürst von
Metternich, the Austrian statesman, considered Europe not as a continent in which separate nations
and states were in constant struggle against each other, but as one single integrated European
republic. This unity, he said, could be achieved only by the "co-operation of the states", not through
the control of one dominant state. As a protection for and guarantee of the peace and the existing
monarchical order in Europe, a league of the four leading powers should have the right of
supervision over revolutionary movements anywhere in Europe. At the Congress of Vienna the
Quadruple Alliance of 1815, in accordance with the Metternich System, took the decision to
assemble annually to review the situation in Europe, thus creating a permanent mechanism to
maintain the status quo established in Vienna. Regardless of the specific nature and function of the
Metternich System, all its arrangements can be considered as the precursor of the international
organisations of the twentieth century.3
The Porte was not represented at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The Ottoman statesman and
historian, Cevdet Pasha, notes4 with regret that the Ottoman Porte then failed to seize the
opportunity to participate in the Congress of Vienna. Since, he argues, in a later stage of the
congress all those European states which were connected with the issues discussed in one way or
another sent their delegates, obviously the Ottoman state also had the right to participate in the
negotiations, at least on the problems directly concerning the Ottoman Empire. Unfortunately, he
points out, the Porte was deeply engaged in so many urgent problems within the Empire–the
struggle against the rebellious provincial notables in particular–that such important external events
escaped the government's attention. Charles Talleyrand, the French diplomat, Cevdet adds, raised
the issue of an agreement among the European Great Powers about a joint guarantee for the
territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire in the instructions sent to the French delegation.
Ottoman participation in the Congress, Cevdet suggests, might have been useful in checking Russia's
ambitious plans. Along with the French and the Austrian governments the English government, too,
supported the idea that "the Ottoman Empire should be included in the general treaty guaranteeing
the status quo in Europe which [Canning, British statesman] hoped would be a result of the
congress."5 Upon Russia's rejection, the idea of a general guarantee for the Ottoman Empire was
dropped.
It was to isolate the Ottoman Empire from Europe that, in the Holy Alliance of September 1815,
Tsar Alexander I insisted on the Christian nature of the Alliance. Let us add here that down to our
days, such a policy is the cornerstone of Greek diplomacy against Turkey. Predicting the future,
Metternich's overriding concern was that the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans
and the ensuing collapse of the European balance of power, would result in a general war.
Developments during the Egyptian crisis of 1832-1833 fully justified Metternich's apprehensions. The
Russian Empire had reached a dominant position in European politics following the fall of Napoleon,
hoping to replace the Ottomans in _stanbul. In 1832, in the desperate situation caused by Mehmed
Ali of Egypt whose armies had invaded Anatolia, Mahmud II (1809-1839) had to recognise Russia's
special status in respect of the Straits with the treaty of Hünkar-_skelesi in 1833, virtually making
the Ottoman sultan a vassal of the tsar and changing the European balance of power in favour of
Russia.6 The tsar had profited from the hesitant policy of Western powers during the first phase of
the Egyptian crisis. during the second phase of the Egyptian crisis (1837-1839), France's pro-Egyptian
attitude obstructed Western co-operation over the problem of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire.
In the critical situation in the wake of the Ottoman defeat at Nizib (June 24, 1839), on the initiative
of England and Austria, the Great Powers including Russia, France and Prussia, delivered a
unanimous note to the Porte and assumed the responsibility of bringing a solution to the crisis.
Thus, the concert of Europe was restored in the face of the dangerous situation in the east seriously
threatening the balance of power in Europe, and aimed at neutralising Russia's exclusive position.
England, which had obtained vast commercial privileges in the Ottoman dominions through the
treaty of 1838, decided to support effectively the integrity of the Empire and the Tanzimat reforms.
This was the beginning of the period covering the years 1839-1878 when England's influence in the
Ottoman Empire became preponderant in all fields. All the Great Powers, except France, agreed
among themselves in London (July 15, 1840) to force Mehmed Ali to abandon his plan of an Arab
empire matching the Ottoman sultan's. At this point, although rivalry among the members of the
European concert continued, the concern to keep the balance of power in Europe brought them
together, the fate of the Ottoman Empire becoming the most important issue in nineteenth century
European politics.
Actually, policies or excuses for interference in the internal affairs of secondary states followed by
the Great Powers in the period 1815-1878 were not very different in essence from those of our
time, except that they are now globalised to control world issues which can lead to a general war.
In 1841, a very important document signed by the five powers with France joining the Alliance reestablished the old status concerning the Straits, superseding Russia's privileged position. "The ships
of war of the foreign powers" were prohibited to enter the Straits of the Dardanelles and the
Bosphorus and the five Great Powers "engage to respect this determination of the sultan, and to
conform themselves to the principle above declared." The particular importance of this agreement
was that the Great Powers were united in accepting the principle as binding on themselves, which
became part of the public law of Europe. It is interpreted as the first step toward the Ottoman
Empire's inclusion in the European concert. This became apparent when the tsar attempted to make
the sultan recognise his protectorate over the Christian subjects of the sultan in 1853. The British
and French governments decided to support the Porte against Russia (the Crimean War, 1854-1856).
By the treaty of Paris (March 30, 1856) the Great Powers admitted Turkey into the European
concert. Article VII says: "Their majesties engage, each on his part, to respect the independence
and the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire".
In return, the Porte promised (The Hatt-_ Hümayun of 1856) fundamental reforms to improve the
conditions of its subjects. By a special agreement, Britain, France and Austria jointly guaranteed
Ottoman sovereignty and territorial integrity and infraction of them was to be a casus belli.
Historically, this meant the culmination of the long process of integration of Turkey with Western
Europe.
5. Ottoman reforms and the emergence of modern Turkey
The westernising reforms of the Tanzimat period (1839-1877) were responsible for the adoption of a
series of Western law codes, judicial organisation with secular law courts, introduction of Frenchstyle provincial administration (1864), and, for the so-called millet system, which made it possible
for the Christian minorities to have their own religious autonomous administration with
representative councils. These liberal westernising reforms culminated in the declaration of a
constitution and the convocation of a parliament in 1876-1877. However, the disastrous war of
1877-1878 with Russia, during which the Western powers remained neutral, resulted in the loss of
large territories in the Balkans. Dismemberment of the Empire created such a deep disillusionment
amongst the Turks that, under Sultan Abdülhamid II (1876-1909), a strong Islamist reaction against
Western influence became state policy. Also, radical changes were happening in European politics
and the balance of power in the wake of the Berlin Congress (1878), with the emergence of a
unified Germany and the ensuing triple alliance making Russia a partner of the Western powers.
Taking advantage of the Ottoman helplessness in the wake of the Russian advances in the Balkans
and the Caucasus, England managed to take the lion's share in the partitioning of the Empire by
occupying Cyprus (1878) and Egypt (1882) as well as penetrating in the Gulf and the Red Sea. Thus,
the security of the British Empire was believed to be guaranteed. These changes also entailed a
complete re-orientation in Ottoman foreign policy. Abandoned by the West, faced with Russian
imperial ambitions and the Greek Megali Idea of restoring the Byzantine Empire, the Ottomans
turned to Germany (Kaiser Wilhelm II's visit to _stanbul in 1899).
The events in the course of World War I, the defeat of the Allied fleet at the Dardanelles in
particular, showed the world the key strategic importance of Turkey and the Straits. Another
historic importance of the struggle at the Dardanelles was that Turks found, in the person of a
young, brilliant soldier named Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk) a national hero who was destined to be
the deliverer of the homeland of the Turks in Asia Minor and Europe from the Greek invasion in
1919-1922. At the end of World War I the prime minister of Greece, Eleutherios Venizelos, a
consummate diplomat, succeeded in obtaining the full support of the Allied powers for the
realisation of the Greek dream of reviving the Byzantine Empire. On 15 May 1919, the Greek forces
landed at _zmir under the protection of an Allied fleet, an episode which vividly recalled the
Navarino operation of one century earlier. The story of the ensuing events is well known. Dictated
by the Allied powers, then occupying the capital of the sultanate, the Treaty of Sevres of 1920
(articles 65-83) granted Greece _zmir and its hinterland, and distributed large territories in Asia
Minor as the shares to the Allied powers. No one then could anticipate that the use of the Greeks
for the Allied scheme of partitioning the Turkish homeland would be a fatal mistake, and would
arouse the whole Turkish nation in staunch resistance to the Allied verdict. From a three-year
struggle (1919-1923) a new nation was born. The point to be stressed is that in his fight against the
Greeks and the victors of World War I, as well as against the Caliph's manoeuvres in occupied
_stanbul, Mustafa Kemal always ensured important decisions went through a national Assembly on
the principle of the absolute sovereignty of the Turkish nation. Thus, the War of Independence
signified a national revolution which asserted the Turkish nation's determination to end the Ottoman
dynasty's imperial-patrimonial rule once for all, and to join on equal footing the club of the
European nation states. In 1922, Arnold Toynbee, then visiting the Turkish-Greek front, declared
that the Turks were fighting there with Western ideals against the West itself. In the peace
conference of Lausanne (July 24, 1923), the Turkish delegation's insistence on equality with
European states was the recurring theme of every issue discussed. Capitulatory privileges, which
had reduced the Ottoman Empire to the conditions of a semi-colony of the Western powers, became
the subject of the most heated discussions causing the rupture of the negotiations for three months
(the recent attempt to give Turkey secondary status in the European Union is interpreted as another
sign of how Europe still regards Turkey as the continuation of the Ottoman Empire). During the
period of 1923-1928 the Grand National Assembly (GNA) in Ankara, acting as the sole representative
of the Turkish nation enacted, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, a series of revolutionary laws
all aiming to make Turkey a modern nation state, democratic and secular. Atatürk and his ink_lapç_
group in the GNA, considered the total westernization of the country as the absolute precondition
for Turkey's becoming a member of the Western family of nations. Atatürk introduced his
revolutionary inkilabs one after another: Declaration of the Republic (October 4, 1993), abolition of
the caliphate (March 24, 1924), adoption of the Swiss civil law (October 4, 1926); the law for a
unified secular education (March 2, 1926); changes in the constitution to secularise the state (1928);
the adoption of the Latin alphabet (October 1, 1928), and finally reforms making the Turkish citizen
appear as a European and to give him a national Turkish identity. The last inkilabs about the
alphabet or dress may be looked on as symbolic, but in fact they are crucially important for
cultural, social and political identity in a traditional society. Seeing stiff resistance from a deeply
traditional society, Kemal's attention turned to the education of the youth of the country. The
enactment of the law of the 'Unification of Education' of 1926 must be looked on as one of the most
prudent inkilabs. His hope was that youth brought up under an absolutely national, secular
education system would be the guarantee of the new Turkey. Through educational and cultural
institutions, Atatürk hoped to create out of a traditional community a modern nation on the model
of the Western nations.
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1 For the Ottoman Empire's economic relations with Europe now see _nalc_k, H. and Quataert, D. (ed.) (1994), An Economic and
Social History of the Ottoman Empire, Cambridge University Press.
2 For Ottomans and the European state system, see _nalc_k, H. (1993), The Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire,
Bloomington; _nalc_k,, H. (1973), The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300-1600, London; Vaughan, D.M. (1954), Europe and the
Turk, A Pattern of Alliances, Liverpool.
3 von Srbik, H.R. (1925), 'Metternichs Plan der Neuordnung Europe 1815/15', Mitteilungen des österreichischen Instituts für
Geschichtsforschung, 60, pp. 109-126; Schmals, H.W. (1940), Versuche einer gesarnteuropalischen Organisation, 1815-1820, Aarau;
Tuncer, H. (1996), Metternich'in Osmanl_ Politikas_ (1815-1848), Ankara. This study in Turkish with a complete bibliography has
largely been followed in this paper; its version in German is expected to be published in 1997.
4 Tarih-i Cevdet, 2nd edition _stanbul, vol.XI, 1309 H., pp. 156-161, 181.
5 Anderson, The Eastern Question, pp. 47-8.
6 In the secret article of the Hünkar _skelesi treaty it is specified that in return for Russia's military aid to the sultan, "the Sublime
Ottoman Porte shall confine its action in favour of the Imperial Court of Russia to closing the strait of the Dardanelles, that is to say,
to not allowing any foreign vessels of war to enter therein under any pretext whatsoever."